Runtime Requirements

The GStreamer framework provides a powerful plugin interface to support a wide variety of media types. The plugins are split into “base”, “good”, “bad”, and “ugly” categories for their varying levels of licensing and codec quality. While Parole is completely free, meaning anyone can use it, redistribute and/or modify it under the GNU general public license; some GStreamer plugins are not free and may not be legal to use in some regions. It is up to you or the distribution to accept the license of these plugins and make them available for use. The list of GStreamer plugins is below.

GStreamer Base plugins comprises the base functionality of GStreamer and are required for normal operation.

GStreamer Good plugins comprises a set of high quality plug-ins under the LGPL license.

GStreamer Bad plugins comprises a set of plug-ins not up-to-par compared to the rest. They might closely approach good-quality plug-ins, but they lack something: perhaps a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests, a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use.

GStreamer Ugly plugins comprises a set of good-quality plugins that are not free and may have licensing issues. These plugins are typically required for proprietary formats and DVD playback.